Category: Aimee Mann


Love, Afraid: Coversongs to Prepare the Heart for Valentine’s Day

February 11th, 2008 — 01:45 am


I spent all morning trying to script a post about songs which struggle with the infinite and indescribably complex mysteries of love. The idea was to celebrate this complexity, and acknowledge as valid the stuff that often holds us back from putting a name to what we feel, lest we call it wrong and mess everything up.

But every time I try to put words to love, things fall apart. Love’s like that, I think. I guess that was the point, after all.

Instead, in anticipation of Valentine’s Day, here’s a mixed bag of folk-tinged coversongs that address the myriad and multiple fears we have about love: naming it, finding it, losing it, and losing ourselves to it.

May each of us, regardless of our romantic status, find something in the words of these poets and songwriters which speaks to our secret heart – the better to withstand the oversimplified, candy-red onslaught of emotion sure to come by Thursday.

  • Feist, Secret Heart (orig. Ron Sexsmith)
    (live at KEXP; also available on Let It Die)

  • Jose Gonzalez, Love Will Tear Us Apart (orig. Joy Division)
    (from Remain)

  • Marc Cohn, I Hope I Don’t Fall In Love With You (orig. Tom Waits)
    (from the Prince & Me soundtrack; more Marc here)

  • Emiliana Torrini, I Hope I Don’t Fall In Love With You (ibid.)
    (from Merman)

  • Aimee Mann, The Scientist (orig. Coldplay)
    (live; from the Lost In Space Special Edition)

  • Evan Rachel Wood, If I Fell (orig. Beatles)
    (from the Across the Universe soundtrack; Evan’s not a recording artist, but her movies rock)

  • Jonatha Brooke, God Only Knows (orig. The Beach Boys)
    (from Back In The Circus)

  • Peter Malick Group w/ Norah Jones, Heart of Mine (orig. Bob Dylan)
    (from New York City)

  • Amy Winehouse, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (Goffin/King)
    (from the Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason soundtrack; more Amy everywhere but the Grammys)
    Link removed due to hotlinking. Please stop stealing my links — I pay for my bandwidth!

  • Nanci Griffith, Are You Tired Of Me My Darling (Cook/Roland)
    (from Other Voices, Other Rooms)

  • Eva Cassidy, If I Give You My Heart (orig. Doris Day)
    (live 1994 bootleg; more Eva here)

  • Evan Dando, How Will I Know (orig. Whitney Houston)
    (live, unknown origin; more Evan here)

    As always, all artist and album links above go to artist websites and stores, the better to show our love for the folks who speak for us when we run out of words.

    Hoping for some more traditional Valentine’s Day fare? Never fear: we’ll back Wednesday with a short, sweet romantic soundtrack for the lucky ones.

  • 870 comments » | Aimee Mann, Amy Winehouse, Emiliana Torrini, Eva Cassidy, Evan Dando, Evan Rachel Wood, Feist, Jonatha Brooke, Jose Gonzalez, Marc Cohn, Nanci Griffith, Norah Jones, Peter Malick, Valentines Day Coverfolk

    The Twelve Jews of Christmas: Folk Covers of Holiday Classics by Jewish Songwriters

    December 13th, 2007 — 06:56 pm

    I was planning on posting this entry for the Sabbath, but the snow’s getting deep outside, and in my rural area, that often means long-term network outages. Hope no one minds getting this “Friday” post a bit early…

    Today we celebrate the holiday coversongs of Jewish-American songwriters, most notably the prolific Johnny Marks, who is best known for penning a holy host of non-canonical Christmas songs, and lesser known for being the head of ASCAP from 1957 to 1961.

    Familiar carols written by Marks include Holly Jolly Christmas, which most of us imagine in the voice of Burl Ives, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which is based on the story by Marks’ brother-in-law, and I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day, which Marks adapted from a Longfellow poem. He also wrote Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree; I was hoping to share some folkcovers of that song, too, but for some reason, I can’t find any. Wonder why?

  • Pedro the Lion, I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day (Johnny Marks)
  • John Gorka, Christmas Bells (ibid.)
  • Martin Sexton, Holly Jolly Christmas (ibid.)
  • Jack Johnson, Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer (ibid.)

    In fact, a significant percentage of “traditional” Christmas tunes turn out to have been written or co-written by “verifiably Jewish artists”. Here’s a few more, mostly from the country and alt-pop ends of the folk spectrum, though the list runs the gamut from urban folk to indiefolk:

  • Raul Malo, White Christmas (Irving Berlin)
  • The Roches, Sleigh Ride (Anderson/Parish)
  • Mindy Smith, I’ll Be Home For Christmas (Kent/Gannon/Ram)
  • A Fine Frenzy, Let It Snow (Cahn/Styne)
  • Steve Goodman, Winter Wonderland (Bernard/Smith)
  • Liz Phair, Winter Wonderland (ibid.)
  • Aimee Mann, The Christmas Song (Torme/Wells)
  • Suzy Bogguss w/ Delbert McClinton, Baby, It’s Cold Outside (Frank Loesser)

    No purchase links today, kids: many of these songs are in the public domain, and even those that aren’t are hard to avoid this time of year. (Plus, how the heck do you link to a songwriter?) Just keep on buying your Christmas music from artists and labels directly, and we’ll call it square, okay?

  • 5 comments » | A Fine Frenzy, Aimee Mann, Holiday Coverfolk, Jack Johnson, John Gorka, Liz Phair, Martin Sexton, Mindy Smith, Pedro The Lion, Steve Goodman, Suzy Bogguss, The Roches

    Single Song Sunday: Joni Mitchell’s River (Holiday Coverfolk, Part 1)

    November 25th, 2007 — 11:40 am

    Though each year brings a few wonderful additions to the caroling songbook, eventually, every truly great holiday song gets covered and recovered in a multitude of genres and styles. Which is to say: there’s plenty of folk covermusic for the holidays. As we slide towards December, stay tuned for a cornucopia of features on Christmas albums, folk musicians, and folksinger favorites, from the Roches We Three Kings to the very best label-driven holiday compilations.

    Today we begin our foray into the holiday coverfolk spirit with a focus on perhaps the first truly modern folk song to be brought into the cycle of once-a-year covers that is the Christmas Canon: Joni Mitchell’s River.

    For a Christmas standard, Joni Mitchell’s River is extraordinarily complex. The subtle piano instrumentation and tongue-in-cheek intro lend itself to holiday ballad; even in the original, the way the sharp chords of Jingle Bells segue into a flowing, languid piano and Joni’s soaring vocals calls up images of drinks by the fireside, snow falling outside frosted glass. But below the surface, this song reveals its songwriter’s mental state. And Joni’s not feeling very Christmassy.

    Like the rest of Joni’s 1971 album Blue, River bears the bitter mark of Joni post-relationship, struggling to put words to a feeling of defenseless fragility. The lyrics are explicit: though it helps to know that Joni was in sunny California at the time she wrote this song, far from the Christmas cold of her native Canada, the litany of faults and life failures which causes Joni to long for a river to “skate away on” certainly transcends mere geographical dissatisfaction.

    Has River become a Christmas standard in denial of its wistful, cynical core? Or is Christmas, in our modern, overcommercialized world world, becoming something from which we long to escape? It’s hard to say. Certainly the song has been disproportionately covered in the last decade: according to one authority, there are over 130 recorded versions floating out there in the ether. But most are saccharine sweet holiday pap, and many change neither instrumentation or voice much beyond adding a few layers of this era’s production. Only a tiny few truly reinterpret this simple hymn of longing and regret.

    But those few are treasures. For despite how easily it slides into the repertoire of the pop balladeer, and regardless of what it says about our changing feelings toward Christmas, River is eminently a song worth saving.

    Today — in a reluctant nod to the fact that half of our local radio stations have already switched over to holiday music — we offer a short list of the best and folkiest.

    Each manages to make the familiar meaningful again — whether it is Peter Mulvey‘s low, broken voice bringing out the true core of Joni’s longing and sadness, or just James Taylor being James Taylor, bright and full of hope even in acknowledgement of the deepest depression.

    Each truly brings new light to an aging standard. Most notably, Angus Stone‘s re-rhythming of the song into a light, bouncy, fully orchestrated work of strings and guitar casts the work as a product of the modern mellow indie-folk movement without losing a drop of poignancy. Allison Crowe‘s solo piano version and Rachael Yamagata‘s piano-with-bass cover may not sound so different from the original at first, but listen again and the subtleties stand out: Yamagata’s slurred, cracked breathiness lends tears to the sadness, while Crowe’s majestic tonal read turns the song on its ear.

    And each is eminently listenable. Listen to the way the waterfall tinkle of the harpsichord compliments the string-and-piano (and jingle bell) poppiness of Aimee Mann‘s version. And, sure, Sarah McLachlan is hardly folk, but this fellow Canadian still manages to bring the fireside feel of winter to her electrified popversion.

    Enjoy today’s covers, the first of many gifts from us to you as we celebrate the holiday season here at Cover Lay Down. And remember: without the bittersweet world for context, we could not so love our songs of comfort, joy, and peace.

    We’ll host a full Joni Mitchell edition of Covered in Folk sometime in 2008, but if you just can’t wait for your coverfix, buy Blue, and start catching up on one of the truly seminal artists of American folk music.

    Or head over to Coverville to download The Joni Mitchell Cover Story II, which ends with the incredible title cut from Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters.

    Or visit The Late Greats for an incredible 30-song post of songs with the word river in them, including both Joni’s original and an amazing version from Madeleine Peyroux and kd lang.

    Or, whet your appetite with today’s bonus coversongs:

    Come back Monday for a very special feature on folk covers of Disney’s Winnie The Pooh, guest hosted by Kurtis of Disney coverblog Covering the Mouse! Meanwhile, I’ll be over at eclectic coverblog Fong Songs analysing covers and original of The Smiths’ Girlfriend In A Coma, while Fong closes the loop with a sweet write-up of yet another Winnie the Pooh cover over at Covering the Mouse. It’s coverblog musical chairs!

    632 comments » | Aimee Mann, Allison Crowe, Angus Stone, Holiday Coverfolk, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Peter Mulvey, Rachael Yamagata, River, Sarah McLachlan, Single Song Sunday